Unrequited Love Blog

I have really thin skin today.  I keep calling myself an idiot about the whole thing with Jessica, and generally feeling like a socially awkward, well, idiot. It’s funny how this cycle of self-criticism:realistic analysis:overinflated hopeful evaluation:self-criticism keeps looping around and around.  The intensity levels may vary a bit, bit it’s essentially the same stuff.

Today, a self-critical thin-skinned day, I realize how geeky I tend to come across, and I wish I were smoother.  I want better clothes, more money, more youth, more chances to start over again.  Have you seen the movie “Adaptation” with Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep?  Charlie Kaufman is such a good writer, poignant and universal.  Toward the end of the movie, after the orchid hunter is killed, Meryl Streep’s character cries, eventually saying “I want to be a baby again, I want to start over, I want to do the whole thing over, I want to be a baby again.”  That’s kind of how I feel today.  Maybe this is tied to my feelings about my mother, and my associations between feelings about Jessica and feelings about my mother (see “Later in September Month 16″).

Also in this movie, Charlie Kaufman and his fictional twin brother Donald are talking, Charlie is telling Donald that Donald was laughed at by the girl he was in love with in high school.  Donald (the life-affirming, out-going twin) says yes, he knew that, he heard her talking about him as he walked away.  But it was his love, and no one was going to take it away from him, not even the girl he was in love with.  I also feel like this at times.  It’s my love, even if I’m the only one who feels it or even sees it as legitimate or “real” or…I don’t know…noble or something, the kinds of things love should be.  Hmmm, maybe I’ll write a film review of Adaptation for the website.

Share/Save

I’ve been thinking how falling for Jessica, an engaged student, and essentially making a pass at her (or at least making my attraction clear) was not my finest moment .  But then, if she had been interested I would probably think that making the pass (and gaining her love/affection) would have been well worth the regrettable but unavoidable upset to all concerned parties and the general drama that may have ensued .  Hindsight is 20/20, and we revise our past to accommodate our present.

Share/Save

I’ve been reading back over my own blog, trying to get a sense of how I felt over time, as well as how I come across on the blog.  One thing that occurs to me is how incredibly cliche I am for falling for a younger student when I’m just pushing middle-aged.  Also, how incredibly cliche (or typical, to be kinder) I am in my general reactions — jealous, possessive, obsessive, writing bad poetry (see “Unrequited” on Musings page of website), insecure, self-critical.  Really, I’m not usually so neurotic.  It’s love that has made me neurotic !   Or, the unrequited variety of love, at least.

I’m typically not a poetry writer.  But this is often something people do when in love — write poetry or love notes even if they have never done so before.  It’s so embarrassingly adolescent.  The whole website/blog thing is a little embarrassingly adolescent.  But it’s been helpful, nonetheless, to be able to express some of this stuff.  Anonymously.  Thank God.

Share/Save

I’m not sure why, but I’m feeling more self-critical today regarding the whole thing with Jessica.  The “whole thing” being, I suppose, our interactions, how I perceived/misperceived our interactions, my feelings about her and in general, my obsessive behaviors post-contact.  When I’m feeling this way, which has come in waves throughout this process, I torture myself with these types of automatic thoughts:

“This is ridiculous.  You’re acting nowhere near your age.  You aren’t in love with her, you don’t even know her.  You’re in complete denial about your creepy behaviors and how most people would respond to them.  You’ve been incredibly obsessive and bad. You probably freaked her out (and embarrassed yourself) by sort of pursuing her via email contact after the end of class.  She was being nice to you, there is NO WAY she would ever have been interested in you, even if she WERE bisexual/gay (which she isn’t, you idiot).  You’re always overshooting when it comes to attraction.  You’re basically a geek, and like most geeks, just not that sexually attractive or charismatic.  Students at the university now know you as “that professor who had a crush on Jessica Smith” or even worse, “that professor who comes onto students.”  Why the hell are you still thinking about her?  It’s pathetic.”

Share/Save

I’m still thinking about Jessica a lot, and missing her.  At this point it is unclear to me whether these thoughts and feelings are the residuals of being in love, or just obsessive rumination that I am enacting personally, and not every rejected would-be lover would do the same.

Predominant feelings are more negative — frustration and anger at being not chosen, at thinking about her being married; embarrassment that I was so goddamned obvious in front of the entire class; embarrassment and shame that I fell in love with a woman who is straight, who is simply and fundamentally not available to me; frustration at just not being able to make any kind of contact with her, thinking about her going on with her life and I have no information, no way of seeing her or talking with her or knowing anything about her; sadness when thinking about her happily married and (psychologically) moving away from me (not that she was ever actually near me, I understand that).

Other feelings are still there, though — happiness thinking over some of my memories (sparse though they are);  hopeful that she is happy and doing well in her life now, that makes me feel good; sexual desire is still pretty strong, although not as pervasive and all-consuming as it has been.

Share/Save